


A Glue For Broken Things

by I_am_lampy



Series: Open Your Eyes [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Episode: s03e02 The Sign of Three, Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 19:27:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10837842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_lampy/pseuds/I_am_lampy
Summary: The words on the note had all been written in different pens and one in pencil. There were several titles that had been scratched out and rewritten, beginning with A few things I wanted to tell you and then Five things I wanted to tell you and then A bunch of stuff I wanted to tell you and finally Seven things I wanted to tell you.





	A Glue For Broken Things

* * *

John was waiting in the kitchen when Sherlock came back from the store. He was at the table and the note was smoothed out before him. He'd been crying but when he heard Sherlock walk in the door, John clutched his head in his hands and sobbed. He heard the carrier bags being set down and then Sherlock came over, took off his suit jacket and hung it over the chair next to John. John could see these things out of the corner of his eye, the motions familiar to him.

John covered his mouth with his hand to muffle his sobs. Regardless of what this new thing was, this "boyfriend" thing between them, being so obviously broken in front of Sherlock was terrifying. It was like having his chest cracked open, and all the black, splintered parts of his heart exposed.

John watched Sherlock pull his chair as close as he could to John's. Then he grabbed the seat of John's chair and pulled it around so they were facing each other. The move was so sudden that John clutched onto Sherlock's forearms to keep from falling off.

John turned his wide eyes towards Sherlock who looked slightly sheepish but mostly warm and clearly concerned.

"My note made you sad," Sherlock said, sounding disappointed. "That's not what I wanted. I just wanted you to know that I carried you with me the whole time. The time I was away and after I came back."

"Sad, yes, but other things, too," John said, not knowing what to do with his hands and then Sherlock clasped them in his hands.

"Bad things," Sherlock guessed.

"No – not bad." John tilted his head to look up at Sherlock.

"Tell me," Sherlock murmured.

He lowered their hands to his knees and roughly stroked the full length of his thumbs up and down the backs of John's hands.

"We're together and I feel like we should just be able to move on but we can't, can we?" John said, more tears falling.

"John."

Sherlock said his name like it was an entreaty _no more secrets_ and a promise _I will give you everything I can_.

John nodded and then Sherlock nodded. A pledge – _anything you ask, I will answer._

"Where were you when you wrote the first one?"

"The first two, actually," Sherlock said with a sad smile. "And I didn't write them. I was handcuffed at the time."

John raised his eyebrow at Sherlock so Sherlock told him.

 

* * *

 

_Sherlock wakes up in the backseat of a gas-guzzling, FBI SUV and his hands are cuffed behind him. His shoulders hurt like hell. Emery Tate, his FBI handler, is behind the wheel and the vehicle is parked. A woman with red hair that Sherlock doesn't recognize is in the passenger seat._

_"How long are we going to sit here?" Tate demands of the woman next to him._

_"Until I say so," she answers, which pisses Tate off._

_Sherlock thinks that's a perfect time to let Tate know he's awake._

_"Whassup Tate?" Sherlock slurs and then cackles._

_"Shut up, you piece of shit fag motherfucker," Tate explodes, gripping the steering wheel like he's going to rip it off and beat Sherlock with it._

_"Like, I fuck the mother of a fag?" Sherlock asks and just because he's already so deep in the shit and because he's sick of these fucking people, he says, "Then it must've been your mother I fucked last night."_

_When Tate tries to climb over the backseat, fists swinging, while Sherlock chokes with laughter, the red-headed woman shows some serious ninja skills by disabling the rabidly cursing well-built one hundred eighty pound man within nine and a half seconds. Tate is out cold._

_"That was – wow," Sherlock says, still trying to get his brain back online after being strung out for – however long he's been out. "You must be Mycroft's underling."_

_"Yep," she says and presses a speed dial number on her mobile then puts it to her ear. "Yes, sir. As sober as he's going to get for now. Yes, sir."_

_She gestures for Sherlock to lean closer and then she holds the mobile against Sherlock's ear._

_"What?" Sherlock asks, irritated that his big brother is pulling rank to bail Sherlock out yet again._

_"Has America made you stupid?" Mycroft asks. Sherlock can hear the barely repressed rage in Mycroft's tightly controlled voice._

_"What do you want?" Sherlock mumbles. All of his joints are starting to ache as he gets sucked further into withdrawal. And he's thirsty as hell and needs to pee._

_"I think you need a reminder of why you requested my permission to participate in these missions. I'm sending four photos. Please think carefully before you do anything else stupid. Elspeth will help you with your detoxification."_

_Sherlock can just imagine the sneer on Mycroft's face when he says 'detoxification.' Then Mycroft takes a deep breath and Sherlock can just picture him gripping the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb._

_"Sherlock, you don't have to be there. Come home."_

_Sherlock doesn't bother with a response. He just pulls his head away from the phone and slumps back against the seat, his head thrown back._

_"I'm done here," Sherlock says to Elspeth._

_He hears Elspeth snapping out the 'yes sirs' before she hangs up and leans over the seat._

_"He sent four pictures for you to look at," Elspeth says._

_"Have you looked at them?" Sherlock asks, trying to keep his voice even and uninterested._

_"Yes," she says and then waits._

_"Are they pictures of a man about half a foot shorter than me, sandy hair going grey, round face?" he says. He doesn't say 'and beautiful doctor's hands and lips that he licks constantly so that when I think about them now, I'm driven mad with desire.'_

_He doesn't say any of that. Instead, he chokes back the urge to beg for the phone, beg for her to show him the pictures of John. They always show John looking miserable but Sherlock's been 'dead' for six months and he knows Mycroft is simply dragging out old photos of him because by this point, John is surely done grieving. He's probably found a beautiful woman and with Sherlock out of the picture, she won't be driven away. John is probably, at this very moment, falling in love with this beautiful woman – Sherlock always pictures her as a redhead, kind of like this woman holding the phone, waiting for Sherlock's answer._

_"They're pictures of John Watson," she says._

_"Delete them."_

_"Okay, then," Elspeth says and Sherlock has to respect her for not pushing the issue._

_"Do you have paper and a pen?" Sherlock asks, every joint in his body beginning to catch fire._

_"Yes, but I'm not taking your handcuffs off until we get to the safe house. So whatever it is you want to write, I'm writing it for you."_

_"Yeah," Sherlock says, nodding his consent._

_She bends over and pulls out a small three ring journal and holds a pen over it expectantly._

_"Write down_ I never wanted to leave you _and then – " he feels tears threatening at this moment so he focuses on the grinding pain of withdrawal instead. "And then_ I love you _."_

_"Done. What should I do with it?"_

_"Fold it up. Put it in my pocket," Sherlock says and angles his hips towards the front of the seat so she can shove it into his trousers pocket._

_"Thank you," Sherlock mumbles and then grits his teeth and surrenders to the agony of detox._

 

* * *

 

John pushed himself out of the chair and held his hand out to Sherlock. Sherlock stood up and took it.

"Come on," John said, and started walking.

"Where are we going?"

"To my bedroom. I want to lay down with you."

On the stairs, they had to let go of each other's hands because it was too narrow to walk up abreast and their height difference made it too perilous to try to walk single file.

In the bedroom that had been his and Mary's, John began to undress. He gave Sherlock a pointed look and Sherlock did the same. When they were both completely naked, John gestured at the bed. They each took a side, turned down the duvet, watching each other the whole time. When they were under the sheets, they moved towards each other in unspoken agreement.

"When did you write _I wish I hadn't run away from you_?" John asked.

The words on the note had all been written in different pens and one in pencil. There were several titles that had been scratched out and rewritten, beginning with _A few things I wanted to tell you_ and then _Five things I wanted to tell you_ and then _A bunch of stuff I wanted to tell you_ and finally _Seven things I wanted to tell you_.

"After I left your wedding reception," Sherlock said.

John reached out and brushed his fingers along Sherlock's cheek at the heavy shadow of grief that passed across his face.

"I didn't know how you felt until then. It was after I told you both that she was pregnant and I made my – I made my vow.

"I let myself look at you the way I sometimes did when you weren't looking. I knew it wasn't a good idea because if either one of you looked at me, you would know that I was in love with you.

"I wanted to memorize your face while it was happy so I could remind myself that I had a hand – finally – in making you happy. Your eyes were so bright and I thought it was her and being married with a baby on the way. But then you glanced at me and tried to smile but your mouth wouldn't cooperate and you looked away and I realized that it hurt you to look at me. And then you kept doing it, these furtive glances at my face, then the tight smile, a nod, then turning your face away.

"Your eyes weren't bright with joy – they were bright with unshed tears. All I could think was _how could I have been so blind_? Me, the great Sherlock Holmes, the man who can read all your secrets written on your face and yet I had failed to see the most important secret of them all. I'd let my love for you blind me to what you really wanted. I wanted so badly for you to be happy. It was my penance for leaving you in the first place.

"And then to see that you loved me back on your _wedding day?_ And not only that, but a baby on the way? What could I say? 'John, can I speak to you for a moment over here in this dark hallway?' Because I wanted to, John. I wanted to snatch you away and find somewhere safe and kiss you and kiss you and kiss you and beg you to divorce Mary and be with me instead.

"What was done was done and I know that you loved Mary, too, if not the same as you love me. She just got to you first. If for no other reason than your child, I wasn't going to interfere. Never.

"So I set the waltz for you and Mary down and then I left the party and I went home and I sat down and stared at your chair and put my face in my hands and I cried. Actually, crying doesn't even cover it. I wailed, I keened, I – grieved you. It was like you had died. Completely and irrevocably lost to me forever, John."

Sherlock said his name in the same way as before – _John_  – a reminder, a plea, a promise. John pulled Sherlock flush with his own body.

"That's three. When did you write _I crossed the line for you_?"

"After I killed Magnusson," Sherlock said.

John cupped Sherlock's face in his and kissed him softly then pulled away.

" _I came back to life for you_?"

"The night I interrupted your proposal to Mary. After I got back home," Sherlock whispered. Then he gasped and gasped again and John realized he was trying not to cry.

John kissed the corner of each eye.

" _I was ready to die for you_?" he asked gently.

"On the plane," Sherlock moaned and pushed his head onto John's shoulder right before the first sob ripped out of him.

"Last one, Sherlock," John whispered against Sherlock's temple. " _I can't live without you_?"

"When – " A strangled moan erupted from Sherlock's throat and John could feel the damp heat of Sherlock's tears and his hitching breath. John's own tears dripped into Sherlock's hair. "After Mary died and you wouldn't – you wouldn't let me near you. You wouldn't let me go to the funeral. You wouldn't let me comfort you.

"So I let you beat me instead. That's when I wrote it."

"My love got twisted, Sherlock, and I hated you for dying and then coming back too late and then pushing me towards Mary. And then she died and you lived and I was grateful and ashamed. And then you were trying to die again, fucking Wiggins in your kitchen cooking up God knows what. And you taking it, killing yourself for what?"

"I don't know," Sherlock choked. "You hated me. I wanted you to see how much your hate hurt."

"We'll get rid of all this shit between us, Sherlock. I promise. And then it won't be like that anymore."

They clung to each other, their sobs muffled by skin, their tears a balm for some of the pain they carried and a glue for broken things.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> I always welcome emails from readers about anything that tickles your fancy, even if it's just randomness!
> 
> archiveofMYown@gmail.com  
> Teddy


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